The Madmen with a Box
by Zephyrim
Summary: This is my first fanfic so have mercy. Anyway, I thought that since both the Third Doctor and the Eleventh both have the bow tie it seemed like a good idea to put them together. I'm sorry for the personality butchering that's sure to be in here. rated T
1. Chapter 1

The Mad Men With a Box

The Eleventh Doctor pulled himself to his feet slowly, having nearly been thrown across the control room of his TARDIS when she suddenly decided to abandon his search pattern for Melody Pond— the infant, not the Doctor's curly haired time travelling outrageously beautiful future sweet heart.

"You alright, Old Girl?" the Doctor checks several dials, smacking one with a hammer to get it working.

"Oh, I see…this is one of things I need to be at," he muttered and resigned himself to exploring whatever little pocket of space the TARDIS picked out of all conceivable points in time-space. After all, she herself had made it quite clear that not only had she stolen (not borrowed) him and not the other way around, she would always take him where she thought he needed to be.

"Are we there yet, Sexy?" he called sarcastically out into the empty room. The TARDIS answered him by throwing him into an opposing wall.

"Ow…right, sorry dear," he stood up again, straightening his bow tie.

_Although, she doesn't usually abuse me when I talk…_

The Doctor checked his dials again. "What are you so excited about?" he stroked the control panel and a moment later the TARDIS landed.

"Alright, let's go explore," the Doctor checked that his sonic screw driver was still in his pocket and opened the doors to his TARDIS.

Outside the TARDIS was a barren wasteland. It was night time…or at least very cloudy…or maybe this planet had no sun; there seemed to be a lot of geothermic vents that provided enough heat. The Doctor scanned around, taking a few steps away from the TARDIS.

The doors slammed shut and the engines began to wheeze in take off.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" the Doctor pointed his sonic at the rapidly disappearing TARDIS trying to bring her back. It was no use; she vanished, leaving the Doctor alone on a dark rock covered in quite possibly unstable thermal vents.

"What, again? Well that's just great," he found a rock and sat down only to hear the familiar engine noises of his TARDIS returning. Despite what River had once told him, the Doctor was not going to turn the parking break off.

_River…Melody…who knew? And considering what Amy and Rory know about River and what River has told me about…us…why didn't Rory try to kill me? He had a sword after all…_

The familiar blue box landed in front of him where it had disappeared from behind him. There was something odd about the TARDIS; she had left all neat and tidy, she'd come back looking all scratched up and more grey than blue.

"You have got to stop turning me into a madman with a box without a box! What was that for? Where'd you run off to? And there's something wrong with you, but I can't quite place my finger on it…" the Doctor continued ranting while he unlocked the door and stepped inside, feeling a strange mixture of relief, irritation and fear…fear?

"Something's wrong, something is definitely wrong…but what...?" he muttered as he walked inside.

The controls were gone. Completely gone, the Time Rotor wasn't plugged into the ceiling, the scanner was gone, the whole column itself was missing…and the Time Vortex was pulsing about the room for all to see. The Doctor averted his eyes from the light and raised his sonic screwdriver. He took a long and detailed reading and consulted the results.

"That explains it…" he nodded. The Time Vortex was contained in the TARDIS' control panel for a reason: it was literally all of time and space and the gaps in between. Without the Time Rotor to suppress it, the TARDIS should've exploded, taking a fair sized chunk of universe with it. Part of the Doctor's mind recalled telling a young Ian Chesterton about that in his first life when the TARDIS was threatening to explode. Stupid fast-return switch…

"Gotta focus…" he muttered and scanned again.

"Do you like it?" a sinisterly familiar voice interrupted his thoughts. The Doctor spun about, pointing his screwdriver.

"Madame Kovarian of the Silence… I've been looking for you," he glared at her and checked the rest of the room. No troops, no clerics, no creepy headless monks. The Doctor checked his hands, no strange tally marks like when he was in America in 1969. No Silence then.

"I'm alone if that's what you're thinking about," Kovarian smiled at him, evilly.

"If I asked questions…would you answer?" he prodded. Kovarian smiled again and started walking up towards the light.

"Don't do that!"

"It's not as dangerous as you think, Doctor," Kovarian calmly points out "but you already know that."

"If this was the actual Time Vortex, you and I and half the universe wouldn't exist by now," he surmised.

"Exactly," she nodded approvingly "Except that this _is _the real Vortex."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor demanded.

"I mean that while this is the real and actual Time Vortex that lives in your TARDIS, it's only a chunk of it. You already knew that too," she informed him.

The Doctor stepped closer to the light, still trying to avoid looking at it. He scanned again.

"This is…but wait, you already have Melody Pond, why would you need to do this? Shouldn't you be training up your little super weapon?" the Doctor glares. "Speaking of which, I'd very much like her back."

"There's nothing you or I can do about that, Doctor. It's true; I did take Melody Pond from you…five hundred years ago in my view. And then, without details, the following happened: you got yourself killed and I found your TARDIS. I destroyed the Time Rotor and unleashed the Vortex. Your TARDIS matrix put up quite a fight trying to keep it contained but while she was fighting to keep the Vortex restrained, I reached in and pulled out _this_. You've already figured out the rest," she waited for him to answer.

"_This_ is my timeline," he states.

"Yes."

"You're hoping to send someone through and kill me before I can become a threat to you, before I become the Oncoming Storm that scares the emotionless Daleks, before I Time Lock the Time War. But why? If what you've said is true then really, all you have to do is wait for me to pop off then, isn't that right?" he faces her squarely, trying to keep from yelling like he had on Demons Run.

"Right on all accounts, your eventual death in this regeneration is only to leave the TARDIS undefended. We were hoping to send someone to kill you in your child hood but we can't seem to reach that part of your past," Kovarian looks at the light again.

"You really should stop looking at that," the Doctor glances at the Vortex Abridged Edition and then focuses back on her.

"Why should I? I've been here for five hundred years after all, hardly the lifespan of a human wouldn't you say?"

"Well yes but you're looking at the whole of my life; it's like reading my diary! And the reason you can't get to my child hood is because from this end of my time stream, Gallifrey is Time Locked! That would only leave the parts of my life when I'm not at home!" the Doctor smiles for a moment and then it fades "Which would leave you with seven hundred years or so of other opportunities to kill my past selves."

"Brilliant as ever, Doctor," Kovarian claps once smiling in a way that was completely out of character and downright creepy.

"See now, you're starting to take on my personality traits from my previous lives because you're staring at the light too long," the Doctor frowns at her.

"That compassion you have for your enemies is annoying."

"If I didn't have compassion, I'd be no better than most of the enemies I face on a day to day basis," he retorts.

"Hmm…and what if one of those enemies you face on a day to day basis was you? I only ask because you haven't bothered to ask a very important question: if I do have access to seven hundred years worth of your travels, why haven't I sent anyone yet? It should've been apparent to you that when I explained what this fragment of the Vortex is, I didn't say anything that would lead you to conclude that I had already sent some one," Kovarian smiled again.

_Honestly, she should stop doing that._

"You want to send me to kill me? Have you never heard of a grandfather paradox? I'm not exactly suicidal either," the Doctor dismisses. "Honestly, I think watching this much of the past has knocked a few brain cells loose."

"But who better than you? In your sixth lifetime, you came so close to dying at the hands of the Valeyard who was in fact you and based on what I have seen of your past, it would take a very special Time Lord to kill you, the Master, Morbius and the Rani to name a few have all failed and the closest person capable of doing it and actually following through is the Valeyard. Unfortunately the part of you that is becoming the Valeyard won't finish cooking until your next life which I know you won't reach so that option is off limits. The only option then is to send you back to that point when you were stuck in 1963 and met those two school teachers. That would certainly do the trick," Kovarian had moved much closer to the Doctor while she was talking.

"Clever except for the fact that one: you're crazy and two: I've already told you I am not suicidal!" the Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver just as Kovarian tried to grab at his throat. She grabbed the sonic instead and ripped it out of his hands and straight into the Vortex.

"Oh, did you have to- whoa!" he ducked as she tried to grab him again and rolled back towards the door.

"I know you'd never consent to go of your own free will, Doctor, I know you better than you know yourself! Naturally, I'll have to tweak your mind just a little!" she kicked out at him, barely missing his face. The Doctor ran back towards the door but Kovarian grabbed his throat and with inhuman strength tossed him into the air as easily as he would toss a coin…or a jelly baby. He hit a railing before the floor, cracking two of his ribs. He spat out blood. Kovarian stepped on his back to pin him down and the Doctor felt an alien pressure on his mind. He fought Kovarian off both physically and mentally and staggered to his feet.

"You're not actually Madam Kovarian are you?"

"Of course I'm me, it's just that part of me is sustained by the Vortex and the other part is maintained by some partial upgrades I obtained from the Cybermen," she explained as she kicked at him again. He dodged again just barely.

"That would explain the cybernetic steel toe in those high heeled boots," he nodded. She punched him in the shoulder dislocating it. The Doctor howled in pain and the pressure from Kovarian's mind broke through his flickering mental barriers. This time the fight for his mind was almost completely one sided, Kovarian wasn't joking when she said she knew him better than he did: everything he did to try and fight off her influences on his mind was perfectly counter attacked. The Doctor started seeing flashes of memory in the haze. His third life…the bow tie…the green velvet jacket that had made him look like a gambler…the white hair…the Venusian Aikido…

Kovarian's assault lifted, the Doctor opened his eyes to find himself in a defensive stance, exactly like his third incarnation would've done. While Kovarian was recovering from the punch to the jaw, the Doctor set his shoulder, eyes watering in pain before relief came. Kovarian lunged at him, he sidestepped and with a loud cry of "HAI!" he struck at her neck. Miraculously she dodged and kicked his legs out from under him.

"Venusian karate? You think I didn't know that?" she laughed and started using his own moves against him. The Doctor rolled back onto his feet and fixed his stance again, breathing hard. His hearts were straining to keep up.

_I must be getting old…again…she keeps using her legs more than her arms._

Kovarian kicked at his face again, the Doctor rolled under her other leg but she jumped up over his assault.

"You're rusty."

"You're cheating."

"I suppose eight life times of disuse has taken away your ability to use these moves properly!" she punched when he expected another kick and the two cracked ribs broke. The Doctor staggered towards the hole in the floor with the raging pillar of light that was the Vortex. Kovarian grabbed his sore shoulder and started crushing it.

"Just a bit more…" she whispered and the Doctor felt like a knife tore through his mind. He screamed at the top of his lungs. He sifted though his ever fragmenting memory and found the image of his third self. He felt himself punch the demented cyberwoman only to have her break his arm in response. Thoroughly disoriented, the Doctor blacked out for a few moments only to come back just in time for Kovarian to push him into the Vortex.

"1963…" she declared in triumph.

_White hair…bow tie…Venusian aikido…velvet coat…the bow tie…the bow tie…_

_Bow ties are cool…_

The third Doctor returned to his lab at UNIT to find it empty.

_Odd… _"Jo?" he called out.

Of course there wouldn't be a response; Jo was in South America with Clifford Jones, she wouldn't be coming back to UNIT soon if at all. The Doctor sighed and turned to the TARDIS.

"When it all comes down to it, it's just the two of us isn't it, Old Girl?" he polished the door handle with his sleeve and smiled. From inside, he could hear something bleeping.

"That sounds like…but it can't be…" the Doctor opened the TARDIS and went to the control column. The Doctor had installed a temporal proximity alarm to pick up the Master's TARDIS some time ago with out telling the Brigadier. Lethbridge-Stewart would only have a panic attack every time the alarm went off. After all, it could only pick up TARDIS' in general and not just a specific one. Somewhere out there, quite nearby, a TARDIS landed.

That's what the Doctor thought before another alarm went off on the other side of the panel.

"Not a TARDIS after all…though that's usually a bad thing," the Doctor scratched his chin, thinking. The second alarm was the TARDIS telling him that time had been interrupted by something strange and definitely not a TARDIS. This fact eliminated the Time Lords and the Master who were perfectly capable of using a proper TARDIS to travel. That meant someone had either caused a temporal accident or someone was using a Vortex Manipulator…a faulty Vortex Manipulator.

_Cheap way to travel…the TARDIS is much more elegant…_

The Doctor sighed again. If someone was fooling around with space-time without the proper knowledge or equipment, the Doctor had to do something about it. Had to.

_Now, to sneak away before the Brigadier tries to rope me into another one of his painfully simple problems._

Captain Mike Yates rolled over in his bed and tried to go back to sleep. He was on sick leave after the whole BOSS fiasco in Wales and his mind was still a bit fuzzy. Most days he woke up with headaches but mostly it was the knowledge that he had been forced to do things that weren't of his own reasoning that kept him up at night. As Yates tried to find sleep, a familiar sound hovered on the edge of his consciousness, a sweet sound like breathing and singing at the same time. There was only one thing that could make that sound: a TARDIS.

Yates forced himself awake and grabbed his house coat. Outside, the morning was just beginning. Yates looked around. There wasn't a blue box anywhere on the horizon…which meant there was only one other Time Lord it could be.

"If the Master's here again…" Yates shuddered and looked around for anything that wasn't there the day before.

_There are several new cars…but not much else. If only it wasn't dawn and I could see what I was doing…_

Yates started walking up the street only to trip over something lying on the pavement. He steadied himself on a car. The thing he kicked groaned. Yates gasped, lying unconscious on the ground was a man in a brown jacket with a bow tie. His breathing was ragged. Yates knelt down and checked his pulse; the man's hand was freezing against his. There was something wrong with his pulse, it was too fast for an unconscious human and it didn't have the telltale _ba-bump, ba-bump _that a normal human would have.

"One-two-three-four…one-two-three-four…" Yates counted and pressed his ear against the man's chest in two places.

"Two hearts!" he fell backwards at the shock. There was no doubt that this man was a Time Lord like the Doctor. Perhaps the Doctor knew him. Yates started to lift the man up but had to stop when the man groaned in his sleep. Yates opened his shirt and saw the black bruise over two broken ribs.

"What happened to you?" Yates asked, knowing the Time Lord couldn't give an answer. Yates dragged him by his feet back to his house minding his broken arm. Once he was safely inside, Yates was on the phone to UNIT.

"Get me Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart!" he ordered to the poor night-shift comm. officer.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor parked his TARDIS within five hundred meters of the strange reading. He was on a street in London; he scanned around with his sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor!"

"Is that you, Yates?"

"Yeah, it's me; did UNIT send you about the Time Lord I found?" Yates asked.

"No, I'm here on my own looking for…wait what Time Lord?" the Doctor demanded.

"Well I'm pretty sure he's a Time Lord, Jo once told me what happened when you were injured…he's doing the same thing," Yates explained. "Come on, the Brigadier is sending some one to pick him up, he's had a rough day, looks like," Yates lead him back to a house down the street from the TARDIS.

"What are you doing here, Mike?" the Doctor asked.

"I live here, I was trying to get some sleep when I heard the noise your TARDIS makes when it arrives. I came out thinking you'd shown up and when I couldn't see your TARDIS I thought the Master was skulking about. I was looking for anything that might be his TARDIS when I sort of tripped on him," Yates opened the door to his guest bedroom and the Doctor went immediately to the unconscious mans' side and briefly touched his forehead.

"He's a Time Lord alright," the Doctor nodded.

"You're not going to check?" Yates wondered.

"There's no need for that; he's injured but not badly enough to make him regenerate, his body temperature is below freezing— a sure sign that he's healing properly and he has the mind of a Time Lord…though he seems to have had something terrible happen to him. He needs rest…not a bunch of human doctors trying to resuscitate him," the Doctor lifted the young looking Time Lord up, minding his ribs and arm which Yates had attended to already.

"What should I tell the Brigadier?" Yates inquired.

"The truth, Mike: that I got here first. The Brigadier can't do anything about that," the Doctor gently walked back out to the TARDIS being careful not to shake the other Time Lord.

_Gallifrey burned; the glass dome of the citadel was cracking under the fire from Dalek extermination beams. The Time Lords were losing the battle in huge numbers. Over head three TARDIS' exploded when faced with Dalek ships. The Doctor looked down at his surroundings. One Dalek emerged from the smoke to meet him on the bloody field, hovering over the uneven terrain. The Doctor raised the gun he hated so much and faced off against the Dalek. _

_Since 'that' battle, the Daleks had started trying harder to kill him. In their emotionless minds, fear started to float over them. Fear of the Doctor, fear of the Oncoming Storm, fear of the Blue Box which brought destruction. They were trying so hard to remove that fear. The Doctor had one shot left on his gun, he could make it but to miss was to die. The Doctor looked at the Dalek before him. Its eyestalk was flickering on and off, it was probably losing power. It maybe had enough for one more shot as well._

"_What are you waiting for?" the Doctor challenged._

The Doctor, sat straight up in bed, panting. The two ribs that Kovarian had crushed weren't broken anymore but they were extremely tender. The room was spinning; the Doctor had the most terrible headache. Something was wrong, he was in the TARDIS, that was for sure, but the walls were different. They were white.

_That's old school…_

"Did you change into something pretty, you Sexy Thing?" he asked aloud.

"I beg your pardon!" a voice startled him, the Doctor spun around to see a man with white hair in a green velvet coat holding a sonic screwdriver and standing by a monitor. His third self was here in the same room…with him.

_Oh no…no…no…play dumb…_

"Where am I?"

"Aboard my TARDIS. You were heavily injured," the man in front of the Doctor explained.

"And you rescued me, I suppose?"

"Not exactly, a friend of mine found you."

"Hmm…" the Doctor swung his legs over the bed and discovered that his previous self (gasp) had stolen his shoes…and his shirt, jacket and…

"I don't suppose you could return that bow tie; I was quite attached to it." _I sound like the very Time Lords who exiled me in this lifetime. That is…more depressing than I thought it would be._

"Of course, they're being cleaned," the Third Doctor stated very tersely.

_Oh good, he doesn't like me._

"Do you remember what happened?" Third asked him.

"Not a thing." _Not a total lie, either. What did Kovarian do to my head?_

The Eleventh Doctor stood up tentatively. The room threatened to spin again.

"You should stay still, you're not fully healed yet," Third insisted and tried to pull Eleventh back to the bed. The result was instantaneous. The moment the Third Doctor grabbed his shoulder, Eleventh heard Kovarian's victorious laughter. Something shifted in his mind and the next thing he knew, his hands were around his past self's throat. The Third Doctor was no fool; in seconds, he brought his knee up into Eleventh's freshly healed ribs and re-cracked them.

The younger-looking Time Lord crumpled to the floor, unconscious once again. He massaged his throat and straightened his bow tie before dragging the poor man back into bed.

_Who is he?_

The injured stranger was already coming around. He coughed at the exertion breathing put on his ribs.

"What did I do?" he asked, fearfully.

"Nothing. I'm alright," the Doctor said.

"Good. She…Kovarian…did something…the Silence…River…" he drifted off again.

_What did he mean?_

The Doctor put his hand on the other Time Lord's head and relaxed his mental barriers. Their minds connected briefly and a haze of blood and death washed over the Doctor.

_A TARDIS with no Time Rotor, a woman with an eye patch and cybernetic legs, the Time Lord that these memories belonged to was struggling so hard…_

_The scene in front of the Doctor changed; he recognized the planet as Gallifrey. It was burning and steeped in blood, was this War before Rassilon began his rule? Was this the Death Zone? _

"_The Oncoming Storm! The Oncoming Storm! RETREAT! RETREAT!" _

_The Doctor recognized the metallic voices of the Daleks and three of them rushed past him in the fog. A single lone figure pursued them at a speed only a Time Lord was capable of, holding a weapon the Doctor didn't recognize. It was undoubtedly Time Lord Technology but Gallifrey wasn't in the habit of making such terrible weapons. The lone figure, longish hair and covered in his own blood aimed and fired three shots, the cries of the Daleks ceased._

The Doctor threw himself away from the sleeping man on his bed.

"What was that?" he asked, horrified by what he just saw. Before he could try again, he heard someone banging on the door of the TARDIS.

"Doctor!" it was the Brigadier.

The Doctor quickly opened the doors to the TARDIS and carefully closed them behind him.

"Yes, what is it, Brigadier?"

"I need to see the Time Lord you picked up," the Brigadier replied.

"He's not the Master if that's what you want to know," the Doctor rubbed his temples, still trying to shake the other Time Lord's memories.

"Is something wrong, Doctor?"

"He's…heavily injured. Not his body, he's mostly healed that but his mind, Brigadier. He's so old, how old I'm not sure, from what I saw of his memories, he could be thousands of years old. I can't actually tell," the Doctor walked over to his desk and sat down.

"Be that as it may, a representative from UNIT headquarters in Geneva is here conducting a routine inspection. She over heard Yates' call to the switch board about the Time Lord that appeared in front of his house and has demanded to see him," the Brigadier explained.

"Who is this representative?" the Doctor asked.

"A Madame Undersecretary Kovarian," replied the Brigadier.

The Doctor froze. 'Kovarian' was one of the things the Time Lord muttered before falling asleep.

"Does it have to be now? He needs rest, not some human bureaucrat harassing him," the Doctor got up and walked to the TARDIS door.

"Orders are orders, Doctor," an unfamiliar voice interrupted the Brigadier. A woman in a grey pantsuit entered the lab. She had curly brown hair…and an eye patch. There was no doubt that this was the woman in the Time Lord's memories.

"He's in no condition to see anyone," the Doctor insisted.

"Now Doctor-"

"Can I see your credentials, Madame Undersecretary?" the Doctor cut him off.

"Of course," Kovarian pulled out a leather card holder. Inside was a sheet of paper with her picture and all her UNIT information. But the Doctor could tell.

"Anyone with a modicum of psychic training could see that this is indeed blank!" the Doctor threw the psychic paper back at her and while she was distracted, he grabbed the Brigadier, opened the TARDIS and closed and double locked the doors.

"I say, Doctor!" the Brigadier fussed.

"Alistair, that is not an agent of UNIT," the Doctor set the controls for the TARDIS and she started to move.

"We don't have to go far, just to the moon will do," he muttered to himself.

"The moon?" cried the Brigadier.

"Now, now, it's perfectly safe," the Doctor assured him.

"Good morning," the Time Lord limped into the control room, favouring his left side and straightening his bow tie.

"Hello," the Brigadier smiled but the Doctor didn't move an inch. The Brigadier noticed this and stepped back.

"Brigadier General Lethbridge-Stewart, it's been a long while," the man smiled back and then looked at the Doctor. For a moment it seemed like he might attack again but he calmed down.

"I'm feeling much better now, thanks for asking," the man noticed the Time Rotor moving and looked at the panels.

"The moon, huh? Why are we going there?" He wondered, still trying to be innocent.

"Yes, Doctor, why are we going to the moon? Abandoning Madame Undersecretary Kovarian in the mid-"

"WHAT!" the Time Lord interrupted on hearing the name Kovarian. He froze and clutched his head, his skin went pale and he started breathing heavily. The Doctor was around to his side immediately, grabbing the other man's wrists and pressing their foreheads together.

_The Eleventh Doctor felt his past self enter his memories again. He tried to pull away this time, to hide the images of his nightmares. He focused and tried to shake his other self out but the younger Time Lord was stronger than he was._

"_I'm trying to help you!" he pleaded._

"_You can't…get out…GET OUT!" _

"_No! Not until you show me who you are and what that woman is to you," Third demanded. His memory of meeting Kovarian at the UNIT base surfaced and the Eleventh gasped. _

"_What's this?" the Third found something tacked onto the Eleventh's mind, some sort of foreign instructions. He grabbed onto a chunk of it._

"_Kill the Doctor!" Kovarian's voice shouted at them. The Third Doctor ripped the foreign thought patterns off and destroyed them. Eleventh's mind wavered and started to return to its former state. _

_Now healed, the Eleventh Doctor had no trouble ejecting his younger self from his mind._

Outside the mental link, the Time Lord (who still refuses to tell of his identity) swayed a little on his feet but remained conscious.

"Thank you," he said and pulled out of the Doctor's grasp.

"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded, frustrated at not having an answer after two mental conversations.

"No one important, I assure you. I'm Nobody; got lost a bit met that crazy woman and fell into a trap. She doesn't like you, Doctor," the man replies.

"I'm not convinced," the Doctor folded his arms.

"No, I mean, she really doesn't like you," the man repeats.

"Don't be coy! I saw your memories of Gallifrey! What happened? What did you do? When did that happen?" the Doctor demanded.

The other man looked back at the Doctor in shock. No one said anything for several minutes. Then he bowed his head. "To quote a very good friend of mine: your future is my past. I'm not from this time zone. That woman is from an organization that both hates and fears what you…what I…what we…will become…so far as I know," he took a deep breath and smoothed his longish brown hair.

"I cross my own time stream?" the Third Doctor wondered.

"Oh come on, this isn't the first time…I run into myself loads of times…which I probably shouldn't have told you…"

"The Time Lords aren't going to let us off so easily this time," the Third Doctor shuddered.

"Ah yes, them…about that," the future Doctor paused, trying to find the words "What are they going to do to me?" he smiled again and went to the TARDIS controls.

"Alright, here's the short version: my TARDIS dumped me off on a dead planet or small asteroid and then abandoned me—she does that—and then another TARDIS, my TARDIS' future version showed up except she'd been gutted out by Kovarian. The TARDIS herself kept the Vortex from vaporizing the universe but Kovarian limited it to just my time stream. She wanted to brainwash me into killing myself, which is stupid but anyway, she tried to knock me out first, but I thought of you, back when I was all Venusian karate and smoking jackets…and the bow tie, bow ties are cool. Kovarian wanted to send me into my first life so that I could kill myself when I met Ian and Barbara but I was half delirious and trying to defend myself using my memories from when I was you so when I fell into the exposed Time Vortex, I ended up here through sheer force of will. The rest I need not explain," the future Doctor hit one more button on the control and stood back. They started moving again.

"Ah I remember these days when the TARDIS was seventy percent less duck tape…" the Doctor sighs nostalgically.

"Where are we going now?" asked the Brigadier who now obviously had a headache.

"One thing you're going to learn when you're me," said the future Doctor to his past self "is that the TARDIS will always take us where we need to go."

"What do you mean?" asked the Third Doctor, perplexed.

"I randomized the destination, I have no idea where or when we're going to end up but it will be the exact place we need to be," the Doctor scratched his head.

"How far in the future are you?" the Brigadier asked.

"Can't tell you my age but I'm the tenth regeneration, eleventh self," he replied.

"How is that allowed but not age?" Lethbridge-Stewart demanded.

"Regeneration happens whenever I die, the first time it happened, it was because I was very, very old and I'd been fighting it for some time but after that it was all exile, destructive radiation, falling off a radio dish, catching an incurable disease, crashing the TARDIS, failed open heart surgery, the Time War, swallowing the Time Vortex and taking a massive, massive dose of radiation. I probably shouldn't have said anything about that either…" the Doctor mused as the TARDIS landed.

"Alright, Brigadier, you stay here and don't leave for anything!" the Eleventh ordered and opened the doors. The Third followed him. Outside was a rocky beach next to a grey ocean.

"Ah, uh oh," the Eleventh looked around "Alfalva Metraxis."

"What?"

"Alfalva Metraxis. I came here once and ran into some rather nasty…never mind, hopefully this is after that," both Doctors looked around for several minutes.

"A word of advice: if you see a statue, any statue, don't blink," the Eleventh Doctor advised.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Hopefully I won't have to tell you."

A flash of light like a lightning strike grabs the attention of both Doctors. From around the back of the TARDIS, wearing full green camo gear with a Vortex Manipulator on her left wrist and some sort of energy weapon in her right hand was River Song.

"Hello, Swettie!"


	3. Chapter 3

"River!" the Eleventh Doctor walked up to her. She slapped him across the face.

"Haven't I been hit enough today?"

"Where have you been? I'm sitting in my cell, wondering if you were going to come for a visit and all of a sudden the TARDIS shows up right in front of my bed. Naturally, I let myself in only to find the place completely empty; she won't go to her last known coordinates nor could I get there with my Vortex manipulator!" she yelled at him before hauling him back to his feet.

"And another- watch out!" she stares straight behind her. The Eleventh Doctor turned to see a solitary angel statue less than a foot away from his previous self.

"Don't blink, Doctor, keep looking at it but not at the eyes and back away," the Eleventh went to his younger self's side and the three backed into the TARDIS.

"River, start the engines, Doctor, Brigadier, keep that angel in your sight until the last possible moment and _don__'__t__blink!_" ordered the Eleventh.

"Would you mind explaining, Doctor?" said the Brigadier. The doors closed the exact second the TARDIS dematerialized. The Eleventh let out a deep sigh and leaned against the TARDIS console.

"I still want an explanation too," added River.

"Pick a number between one and eleven," ordered the Doctor, exasperated.

"Eleven," guessed River.

"Three," guessed the Brigadier.

"Oh come on, the number was seven! Fine, Brigadier, the Weeping Angels are a race of cold blooded killers that are just as old as the Time Lords. They send people back through Time in order to feed off the energy released by forcing them through the time stream. They move incredibly fast unless they feel that someone is looking at them and then they become quantum locked and quite indestructible. They really like my TARDIS because it freely moves through time; the energy could keep them sustained forever," the Eleventh Doctor took a deep breath and then turned to River. He walked straight up to her and whispered in her ear about what happened to him.

"Where is my TARDIS now?" he whispered.

"Safe. I know the coordinates," she whispered back.

"We can't get there using this TARDIS; it's the same TARDIS. It's bad enough that I'm in the same room as my past self," the Eleventh looked back at the other Doctor and the Brigadier.

"So this is you when you were young!" River went over and shook the other Doctor's hand.

"Wow, you're so young!" she exclaimed.

"I happen to be almost 750!"

"But she knows me and I'm old," the Eleventh Doctor put in.

"To my eyes, it's the other way around," the Brigadier interrupted. Both Doctors turned and looked at him.

"What I want to know," the Third Doctor raised his voice, pointedly ignoring the Brigadier "how do you know how to fly the TARDIS?"

"Spoilers," was all River said.

"That hasn't stopped him…" objected the Third.

"I'm trying to keep all the fore knowledge to a minimum but it doesn't help that someone went gallivanting around my head without permission," the Eleventh Doctor told River, pointedly glaring at the Third.

"Your personality seems to be a bit odd, I can't say I'm looking forward to that," he retorted.

"Oh really? Well the only decent thing about being you is the bow tie and maybe, _maybe_ the car!" shouted the Eleventh.

"Really; and I suppose being the man who destroys Gallifrey is supposed to be all sunshine and daisies!"

The Eleventh Doctor stopped before he could make a retort. For a moment he stood frozen in shock…and then he decked his Third self in the face. The white haired Time Lord hit the floor.

"You think I'm proud of what I've done? Do you think I get some sort of sick sense of pleasure for what happened? After the war was over, I ran, I didn't explore I just ran. I ran from the memories; I ran from myself! If you think for one second that it is easy for me to stand here in front of you— the good Doctor, the proper Doctor, the Doctor who will one day contemplate averting the Daleks' creation entirely—you're wrong. If I didn't have the universe on my shoulders, I'd be on my knees begging for you to understand why. I can see the disgust in your eyes, Doctor; I see the fear, I see the self loathing already forming inside you. You see me and think that one day you will be me and that just tears you up inside doesn't it? I-" the Eleventh would've continued but he felt River take his hand.

He involuntarily relaxed, this was Amy's daughter after all, and Amy was his best friend. The thought of Amy, Rory and River calmed the Doctor down but he couldn't undo the scowl in his forehead.

"Just stop, love," she mouthed to him. He nodded.

She smiled. "Good. Now apologize both of you," she ordered, looking at the Third Doctor.

They both scowled, River sighed. "Apologize now or I'll shoot you both," she clarified.

The Third stepped up to face the Doctor, still massaging his jaw. "What you've said about me is true: I am scared. I might not see eye to eye with the Time Lords, but I've never once thought that I would be the one who destroys them. However, you obviously have a friend who can calm you down. That seems to be very important for you. After seeing the effect that River, was it? That River has on you…I feel more at ease than I was," the Third Doctor took a deep breath "and I'm sorry for what I said. You didn't need to hear any of that especially not from me."

The Eleventh Doctor nodded gravely and a weak smile formed. "I knew you'd go first, not because I remembered you doing it but because you're a better man than I am…a far better man. There are tons of reasons why I'd want to be you. I liked being you, not the exile bit mind you, but everything else: Peladon, the Dinosaurs…whoops; that's not you yet. Alright, I'm not supposed to talk about why I'd want to be you again but the feeling is there. I'm sorry; being me isn't exactly a picnic in the Eye of Orion but it has its good moments." The Doctor glanced at River and the Third nodded.

"Okay, so Kovarian is messing about with my time stream and threatening the whole universe, how do we stop her?" the Eleventh looked at River and the Doctor.

"We have to find her first, and since she has already tried to track you down, it should be as simple as waiting for her," River surmised.

"Hmm…" thought the Eleventh Doctor looking at the TARDIS panel.

"If Kovarian has invaded UNIT HQ we can't go back without running into the Silence," River reminded him.

"I know; unfortunately, we know that she's there. It's the easiest way to get to her," the Eleventh Doctor replied.

"The Silence?" asked the Third

"Spoilers," interrupted the Eleventh before River could clarify.

"If it's important, we need to know, yes?" replied the Third looking indignant.

River looked back at her Doctor, confused.

The Eleventh Doctor landed the TARDIS and opened the doors.

"Where are we now?" asked the Brigadier, quite overwhelmed.

"UNIT HQ," the Eleventh Doctor caught River's eye and they left, the Doctor taking her hand.

"Where to?" she whispered.

"Anywhere," he replied and she hit a button on her Vortex Manipulator. The Doctor heard his past self shout and something grabbed his shoulder just as the device activated.

They ended up on a planet with three moons and a huge forest. River spun, pulling out the gun. The Eleventh caught her just in time before she shot his younger self.

"You had to. You always had to," he shouted at the white haired man.

"You need my help."

"I don't want you involved, you know too much as it is!" the Eleventh smoothed his hair back roughly and paced.

"River, where are we?" he demanded.

"Don't know, but I can send him back to where we were," she replied.

"You can't handle this alone," objected Third.

"I've been alone for so long. I'm used to it. Besides that, I'm not right now, am I?" Eleventh whispered to his past self in the way he did when he was really, really angry.

"Hello, Doctor," said a sinister, familiar voice.

"No…no way," the Doctor turned and saw the Master, the old one from his past self's time who could never beat him.

"Master!" the Third Doctor glared only to be stunned.

"River, ru-" the Eleventh Doctor yelled at her before getting shot as well.

* * *

><p>It was really dark when the Third Doctor woke up and he was groggy. He was tied up and behind him he could hear his older self struggling with the ropes.<p>

"You awake yet?" the Eleventh asked.

"Yes," the Third reached behind him and felt the ropes. "Even Houdini would have trouble with these."

"Trouble, yes, but he would get there eventually." The Eleventh laughed as one of his hands came free.

"How long have you been awake?" wondered the Third as Eleventh freed himself.

"About three hours," replied his older self, freeing the Third.

"And you didn't think to wake me up?"

"I tried…you have no survival instincts. You wake up when it's convenient, I wake up because I might die if I don't," the Eleventh searched the room they were locked in.

"If only I had my- OW!" the Eleventh Doctor exclaimed clutching his left eye.

"What happened?" demanded the Third.

"Screw driver! If only I had my screwdriver. Well here it is; it must have fallen through the Vortex into my time stream like I did," the Eleventh held up the green and gold device and pointed it at the lock. The lock promptly exploded.

"Right, now we have to find River," Eleventh left the room and Third followed, running with him. This Doctor was obviously used to running.

"If I know the Master—which I do—he'll be planning something using a large bomb, a timer and a black cape with sequins on velvet. I miss him," Eleventh laughed and turned a corner.

"You miss…the Master…" repeated the Third, fighting the urge to check the Eleventh's temperature.

"Spoilers."

"Of course."

* * *

><p>River woke up to see a madman adjusting something on a very large bomb—and it wasn't <em>her<em> madman. She could tell it was a bomb; the large black box had a very disco looking red timer on it.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Ah, you're awake," the man smiled at her. River gave him a disinterested look that seemed to unnerve him.

"I suppose, being a stupid ape, you have no idea who I am," he smiled evilly.

"Let's see," River began "Large, unimaginative, crude bomb with disarm-able timer, black cloak, melodramatic, Machiavellian sense of superiority, Time Lord origin…you could only be the Master." River smiled.

"Have we met?" wondered the Master.

"No…I'm a bit after your time," River straightened up and started cleaning her finger nails; even if she wasn't tied up, she didn't get up because the Master was holding what looked to be a Tissue Compression Eliminator. Typical. River had read about the Master while researching the Doctor and was not amused. She was obviously a better psychopath.

"Who are you?" demanded the Master.

"No one special," she replied still bored.

The Master leveled his tool at her "I demand to know; no human could possibly know me and I know you're not traveling with the Doctor."

"Oh, but I am," smiled River, leaning forward "He just doesn't know that yet."

"And I'm supposed to believe you," sneered the Master.

"Quite honestly? I couldn't care less. I know how your story ends, Master. It ends in your victory."

"My victory? Here?" asked the Master.

"Of course not, you're young and stupid and this method of trying to get to the Doctor is just childish," laughed River, standing up and stretching. The Master was intrigued now and allowed it. "No, your victory comes with one action the Doctor can't prevent and it'll devastate him completely."

"And what would that be?" he demanded.

River smiled and leaned in again. "Spoilers," she said and then drop kicked him into a wall. He didn't get back up.

"Let's see now," River hummed as she brought up the security feeds for the Master's compound and found the Doctors. She unlocked all the doors for them.

* * *

><p>The Doctor was about to unlock the next bulkhead when it opened on its own.<p>

"That's amazing!" exclaimed the Third.

"That's River," replied the Eleventh. They ran down the hallway, following the path River created for them.

When they got to the control room, River was humming to herself while ripping circuitry out of a very cheesy looking bomb.

"Could I borrow your screwdriver?" she raised a hand, not looking at them.

The Eleventh handed his over and looked in the corner. The Master was hand cuffed in a corner with tape over his mouth. He looked decidedly angry.

"Handcuffs?" asked the white haired Doctor. The Eleventh just shrugged.

"He's so annoying, how is it you ever had trouble with him?" River closed the panel and stood up.

"That bomb is-!"

"A very outdated Raxacoricofallopatorian egg timer," interrupted River over the Third Doctor's cry of alarm.

The Eleventh Doctor wasn't listening; he went and removed the tape on the Master's face.

"Now how did you know we would end up in that forest?" he asked.

"Who are you? The Doctor sure has picked up a few violent friends," the Master looked past the Eleventh and looked at the Third "She's delightfully mad, I thought you didn't like mad?" he called.

River shook her head to keep the Third from replying.

"Yes, we're all mad, especially you, Master," continued the Eleventh "I know what's in your head now tell me what I want to know."

"You…know…?" the Master retreated further into the corner.

"Of course I know, but now is not the time. I know that there are Silence in this room. I can't remember, but River's almost out of ammunition so I ask you: where is Kovarian?" he asked.

River looked at the gun she didn't remember picking up. There were ten tally marks on her hand.

"I've got one shot left," she looked around the room and saw them: dead Silence, ten dead Silence.

"What are the Silence?" asked the Third.

"Race of beings that can't be remembered by any living mind once you look away; I was hoping to not have to tell you that, then again, you aren't supposed to be here at all," the Eleventh pulled the Master to his feet and dragged him over to River and the Third Doctor.

"Get us out of here," ordered the Eleventh. Everyone took hold of River and she hit the button.


End file.
